1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network relay apparatus used for relay in a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
On the occurrence of some failure on a route in a subnet, each network relay apparatus belonging to the subnet deletes learning information of a MAC address, which has been learned and stored in advance, to allow for a relearning operation of a detour route. Deletion of the pre-stored learning information of the MAC address, however, takes a relatively long time. A proposed technique utilizes MAC addresses stored in a learning table prior to the occurrence of a failure, with a view to shortening the time period for recovery from the failure.
This proposed technique of rewriting the learning information of the MAC address, however, still takes a relatively long time. This undesirably lowers the reliability of the network relay function (for example, the occurrence of communication cut-off or frame looping).